Peer learning can give students an engaging learning experience

Last Tuesday, I organised a colloquium where students presented their research projects to their peers and a handful of teachers. The work was then critiqued by peers. Teachers mostly sat back, guiding where necessary and asking questions. And boy, wasn’t it amazing watching them feed off each other, so to speak?! It got me thinking about the whole idea of peer teaching. How wonderful a strategy it can be if well executed.

To some, being taught by a peer may be a foreign concept—although it’s likely that you have experienced peer teaching in informal settings or on smaller scales. In fact, peer teaching has become increasingly revered as a pedagogical strategy and is becoming common for a good reason. It offers some important benefits for learners and instructors alike. Being taught by a peer can break down barriers that may affect some students and can create a more engaging learning experience. Peer teachers can also benefit from the process.

How it is done

The traditional classroom model for middle and high school students involves an adult instructor teaching a group of young people. These teachers have a mastery-level understanding of the material and, in most cases, they originally learned the material long in the past. There are clear distinctions between teachers and students in these instructional settings. An example of peer learning in the modern day can be a student whose reading level is higher than their peers leading a discussion group over an assigned reading for English class, or a fourth-year medical student leading a clinical skills laboratory for other medical students.

When peer teaching is effectively used in a classroom, students can enjoy an effective and engaging learning experience. It’s important to note that all students, especially children, are different and learn in different ways, so they may have different responses to peer teaching. In general, students can learn from their peers in a similar way as they learn from adult teachers. Just as adult teachers transfer information they know to students, peer teachers can also transfer what they know. The difference isn’t so much in how they are taught as in who is doing the teaching and the dynamic that creates. Having a peer as their instructor can foster a different dynamics compared to a traditional teacher-student relationship. Some students feel more comfortable learning from a peer and may be more engaged in their learning.

The Curriculum Development Committee (CDC) at the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU) in South Africa, reviewed the fifth-year medical degree programme in 2014 and invited students who completed the academic year to provide feedback. Poor attendance to whole class lectures was a major concern. This prompted the faculty to explore educational strategies that would engage students to actively learn. Peer teaching was the strategy selected by the coordinator to enhance student learning over the following two academic years. The use of formal lectures prepared and presented by each student to their peers replaced the traditional lectures presented by the faculty.

This strategy indicated that peer teaching stimulated students to actively learn, which also includes the fostering of a deep approach toward learning. The process of preparing for the lecture engaged the students in adopting several learning strategies to actively seek a holistic understanding. This challenged students to revisit prior knowledge and integrate this knowledge in the construction of a new perspective through analysing several resources in the process. The students also observed that this process enabled them to retain knowledge in their long-term memory. Students were extrinsically motivated to perform well so that they appeared knowledgeable to their peers and reach the benchmark set by previous peers’ presentations.

However, while engaged in their preparation this prompted them to develop a genuine interest in their topic which resulted in them to be intrinsically motivated. This teaching experience could be regarded as effective for student learning because it tested their understanding through verbalisation and their ability to answer questions. Additionally, the teaching experience exposed the students’ communication skills, which students found to play a pivotal role in their performance.

Challenges

The value of peer teaching as an effective learning strategy is compelling. However, there are a few challenges that could hinder the learning process. The planning and implementation of peer teaching may unveil potential pitfalls, which may require review and alterations of certain aspects along the way. To avoid some of these pitfalls, it is important to arrange appropriate stakeholders, pay attention to training the peer teachers, and to clarify practical arrangements.

Students can still be concerned that peer teachers may not reflect the knowledge of an experienced expert in the field. Furthermore, in a less formal teaching environment, the peer teacher can have difficulty taking control of the group as they are taken less seriously. This can impact their objectivity when evaluating and assessing their peers.

Another factor that may be obstructive to the learning process is social loafing. Social loafing or free riding is when members within a group shirk their responsibilities in the hope of gaining from others in the group. This causes a threat to the positive interdependence within a group. Usually, this occurs when the group size is too large, and group members are not identifiable or group members are not evaluated individually. This could be reduced by evaluating and providing feedback to include each individual within the group.

What Are the Advantages of Peer Learning?

Peer teaching/learning has become increasingly popular in many instructional settings in recent decades because it has demonstrated several valuable benefits. For students, peer learning can lead to improved attitudes and a more personalised, engaging, and collaborative learning experience, all of which can lead to higher achievement. For peer teachers, the experience can deepen their understanding of the subject and impart confidence. Peer teaching has lots of benefits not only to the student audience but to the peer teachers as well.

1. It Improves students’ attitudes toward learning

One of the benefits of peer teaching is that it can have a positive effect on students’ attitudes about what they’re learning and the learning process in general. According to the International Encyclopedia of Education, research has shown that collaboration among peers in a learning environment can enhance students’ socio-emotional development. This includes improving their concept of self and having a better attitude toward learning. Being taught by a peer can break down barriers that might exist for some otherwise disengaged students.

For example, having a peer teacher may make some students feel more comfortable and more willing to ask for the help they need. Students may also experience an increased sense of motivation because they are being taught by someone like them who has managed to learn and is excited about the material. In other words, they have a success story right in front of them to inspire them to achieve the same results.

2. It fosters a more personalised learning experience

Peer teaching can be done in larger groups where peer teachers are greatly outnumbered by peer learners. It can lend itself well to lower student-to-teacher ratios, where either a single student teacher is leading a small group of students or multiple student teachers are helping to lead a larger class.

With this model, peer instructors can check on students individually, answer questions, and assist each student in the way they need. This may mean explaining the material in different ways to different students or walking students through a process individually.

3. Leads to higher academic achievement

Another reason some educational programmes choose to implement student teaching is because it may lead to higher academic achievement for students. When students are more engaged in the learning process, more motivated, and have received more individualised assistance, it’s easy to see why they are likely to succeed.

For some students, being more engaged by a peer teacher can make all the difference in helping them develop a strong handle on the material and feel the motivation they need to do their best.

4. Aids peer teachers to gain confidence and sharpen their skills

It’s also important to note that peer teaching is not a one-way exchange. Peer teachers can also experience benefits from engaging in the peer learning process. If you’ve ever taught a concept or skill to a friend, you may have noticed how this act of teaching helped you brush up on information or sharpen your skills. There is a wealth of research to show that teaching something is an effective way to enhance your own understanding of the material.

This means, student teachers can sharpen their knowledge through the process of transferring their skills to peers. As they prepare lessons, answer questions, provide demonstrations, and more, peer teachers can come away with a deeper understanding of the material.

They may even learn something new from another peer teacher or a peer student. Research also shows other benefits for peer teachers. Developing lessons and working in an instructor role can help them grow in creativity, independence, and self-confidence, among other things.

In peer teaching the key is learning. The social construct of peer teaching creates a complex learning environment which challenges the students at a cognitive, affective and metacognitive level of learning. Furthermore, students have the opportunity to confront their own communication and interpersonal skills, which are clearly uncovered in their interactions during peer teaching. Addressing each component separately provided an in-depth understanding that guided the reasoning of using peer teaching as a learning strategy that promotes students to learn actively.

Educators implementing CBC might want to think through this concept and formulate the most effective ways of implementing it within their contexts.

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